Wait for it to go down in price too.

Damn, I won't be buying this game for a number of reasons, but that chat log is truly disgusting. Not that I'd expect much different from EA, but still.



Thinking I might help these guys out. Contribute and pass along if you can. Crowd-sourced funding can accomplish things in no time.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...d?ref=category

Some photos of my city:

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/2287869/city1.png

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/2287871/city5.png

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/2287873/city2.png

Evolution of my skyline...

What it looked like shortly after I started building:

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/2287867/city4.png

Now...

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/2287865/city3.png

Those traffic lights are out of sync. Your citizens must be pissed!

It looks like the level of detail in the buildings in this game is less than SC4...

Fuck 'em. There are two traffic lights not even a stone's throw from one another that are constantly out of sync by my house. Every time I drive down the street, I get stuck at one light and then get stuck at the other not even 30 seconds later. It's the most annoying goddamn thing you'll experience ... and it sucks worse because on the crossing intersection, one side will be red while the other is green and then vice versa, so, it's extra long.

EVIL!

Stupid Salt Lake. I hate you.

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/2292297/evil_.png

You should have seen the shitstorm it kicked up when it was first posted to sites like Reddit and 4chan (the latter seems to get mad at everything and anything, though). Consumers are going to get fed up with these companies and their anti-piracy measures, in fact I'm tempted to say EA is going to lose more sales due to their own incompetence then they would have ever lost to piracy.

No, it's just that it seems most people don't have a computer that's powerful enough to push the highest level of graphics. Because the second Rome: Total War will also be coming out, I intend to get the most powerful desktop computer I can afford and dedicate it to these two games. If it's multi-threaded, Sim City would benefit from a very powerful CPU like a Core i7 3770k. Until I am able to acquire such a machine, I won't be buying this game (if server issues persist and EA keeps screwing consumers I may even consider pirating it to teach them a lesson).

Speaking of which, Comrade Reynolds, you have one of the better-looking screenshots I've seen so far. What are your system specs?

http://i.imgur.com/R78gRHM.jpg

These intersections are part of our driver's test route. To get your licence, you have pass them without flipping out.

Few shots of my city, Oxnard-Freemont

http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...78967318_n.jpg

http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...38093717_n.jpg

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...61782577_n.jpg

The oldtown section that I "landmarked"
http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...43180245_n.jpg

Early days of the oldtown section, which I decided to maintain from increased growth
http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...07146260_n.jpg

Early days of the CBD. The theater was 'landmarked' and the neighboring buildings are all towers now. Maybe ill do a then and now.
http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...77761829_n.jpg

Early days' the CBD, now oldtown
http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...70808096_n.jpg

Very early days of the city, but I retained all these buildings.
http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...07098549_n.jpg

Present day CBD
http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...34452816_n.jpg

Present day CBD
http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...63299670_n.jpg

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...62223458_n.jpg

http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...67903860_n.jpg

http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...99156859_n.jpg

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...85724638_n.jpg

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...84108620_n.jpg


Special lessons learned for making more realistic cities.
- Allow them to remain low wealth as long as possible. As low wealth commercial towers appear, slowly easy in $$$ plazas on city blocks nearby where you want larger deco skyscrapers to develop.
- Residents don't seem to mind air pollution much. Keep the industrial area around as long as possible as the CBD develops. When it hits critical mass with wide diversity of wealth you can then begin to phase out the industrial area if you don't really want it. Rushing demo to early could cause vacancies in buildings you dezone.
- Get the department of utilities as soon as possible to unlock cleaner disposal options.
- Big city blocks really maximize build out. But they cause issues with sewage flow. They also create more traffic congestion, but it doesn't really seem to harm growth and performance.
- If a building you really liked became vacant, don't demo it. It will eventually return unless it was destroyed in a fire. I had a glitch that caused a few buildings to lose water. I'm not entirely certain if they'll revive or not, but I'm ticked because they were a nice solid street wall. But it can be repaired by demolishing that lot, rezoning it, and waiting for it to reappear.
- Embrace mixed zoning. If you have a tiny commercial building wedged between taller commercial buildings you intend to keep around, zone it residential. It will become a nice solid walkup completing that urban wall....as opposed to some roadside stand.
- Always zone 3x3 modules. Though I do like medium density commercial which is 2x2. Usually I'll create a city block with 2x2 commercial medium and 3x1 or 3x3 residential on the opposite side. My friend is able to see a traditional sim city grid overlay on his maps, but I'm now hearing that's a graphics glitch. The help guide makes no indication any grid exists....just the Alt command to show helper lines when placing roads.

^ I've seen that guys other epic reactions to other games. Folks this is what you'll turn into if you make video games your life! It will be perfect to show my kids someday.

I hope you understand that this is a character he plays. His vids are still the best things though.

Oh and this.

• Video Link

The new Simcity is a terribly released game. Not the graphics or the concept. In fact I think this is the best SimCity yet. However Online issues pleagued by EA's servers have made this game a disaster.

EA Will fix the bugs however I'm going to stick with Cities XL.

Cheers for your posted cities guys :)
I will get the product after everything's been fixed.

Hayward, your screen shots are pretty sweet. Do you have a really high-end computer?

I decided to make a new city in a new region. This one I think looks better than my old city since its downtown is centralized a bit and has a far more downtown feel to it. My last city, if you look through posts, had skyscrapers all over the map. Not in this one ... yet, anyway.

I started the city last night and it's grown pretty quickly even though I've only played a few hours here and there.

This was my city in the beginning stages of its development. Not very large at all and mostly filled with small commercial, retail and residential.

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/2301565/1.png

But soon it began to grow and I added a City Hall and, apparently, an educational building. Both dominated my skyline for what I can only guess was a few years.

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/2301589/2.png

The growth continued and I built a university that proved popular to the region.

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/23...1_02-24-34.png

An aerial of my city from the University area. You'll notice the skyline is starting to form on right of the image. That's where the major skyscrapers will develop over the next few years.

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/23...1_02-50-56.png

Finally, my city sees its first tower - a residential high-rise right in the middle of what is turning out to be the downtown area of the city (I had planned it around the city hall, but I guess it decided to develop a bit east of it).

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/23...1_02-59-43.png

The tower is complete and, as you can see, it dominates the skyline. That would change soon enough.

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/23...1_03-00-48.png

As my region grew, I found my residential exploded and I saw a skyscraper boom. This all developed really fast. Far faster than my first city.

Here is one of the main downtown drags. Not very busy right now, but you can see the construction taking off.

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/23...1_21-56-57.png

Most my skyscrapers are on this street, which, as I said, gives it a more 'downtown' feel since they're not spread out over the entire region map. But you can also see how the development outside downtown remains considerably non-dense.

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/23...1_21-58-59.png

A night shot of the skyline from a residential neighborhood.

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/23...1_21-42-34.png

I decided to change the filter because the one I had it set on made it look a bit too cartoonish. So, most every other photo will look a bit different for that reason.

Here's the skyline from the high school area.

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/23...1_22-02-07.png

The skyline from another residential neighborhood. City hall, the once tallest structure in the city, now appears dwarfed by the high-rises.

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/23...1_22-17-40.png

Yeah...my city has suburban housing just outside downtown. :P

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/23...1_22-18-44.png

I like this photo solely because of the skyline in the background.

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/23...1_22-20-55.png

As you can see, there are a lot of smaller apartments outside the downtown area.

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/23...1_22-26-31.png

Here's one of the main streets that I plan on running light-rail down in the future. You can see the first water tank the city ever had - back when it was just a tiny town. I'll keep it there for historical sake.

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/23...1_22-23-37.png

Downtown at night. The small building next to the bus depot was one of the first constructed in my city. I remember this because, when my town had only a few hundred inhabitants, I thought it looked like one of those old west saloons. It's survived all these years and who knows, maybe it'll remain well into the future.

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/23...1_22-32-41.png

To give you perspective of the growth I experienced...

Here's the skyline as the downtown really started forming, but lacked any real height.

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/23...1_02-39-49.png

And here's the skyline during the construction boom from the same area.

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/23...1_22-12-19.png

Here's an older photo of my city from the University. You'll notice it's mostly just small developments, as even the mid-rise residential tower, the first in the city and at one point one of the tallest structures (I don't think it was as tall as the city hall dome), doesn't make too big of an impact on the city's skyline.

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/23...1_02-25-43.png

But today, the town's growth has completely altered the area. This is from roughly the same spot, looking in the direct location as the other photo, and you'll see just how radically the city has changed in such a short period of time.

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/23...1_22-28-50.png

Finally, here's a distant skyline shot from a neighboring city. Since my city sits up in the mountains, it can be seen all the way down by the river valley.

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/2307123/skyline.png

Downloading, although Im freakn nervous my computer wont be able to handle it. Crossing my fingers.

Well fortunately it work me but unfortunately my computer isn't good enough to handle the pretty pictures you guys have taken. Oh well, it works with the poor lighting and the other options high. I should be satisfied .

So, my second city I showed above has developed fairly interestingly. Almost every high-rise I have is residential, which tells me most my sims commute to another city to work and somehow, I ended up being the residential mega-center of the region. It's cool, because the residential towers are nicer and sleeker than the commercial towers, but it's quite odd as half my city is residential high-rises and the other half is mostly mid-rise commercial structures that look like they're out of the 60s and 70s.

I actually bought a $300 laptop at best buy just to run it since I have a Mac. Surprisingly it runs the game flawlessly, despite the games own errors. But it also seems to run adobe cs6 without hitches either. I guess they build cheap computers better nowadays or maybe it will just blow up on me in a year.

Xing, I confess. I had a bunch of people over last Thursday to play the game like a bunch of nerds. You should've come by. At least it was a Thursday so it wasn't like we were total losers

Can someone please tell me how to turn on that stupid grid. I'm not talking about the one displayed by pressing alt. I want to place roads so I waste as little space as possible. The alt road lines are bogus at times. Whole game relies on 3 tile deep lots it seems

I have it on and I don't know what I did?